The Montebello Unified school board unanimously denied a petition from a charter school to join the district on Thursday.

If the charter school had been approved, it would have been the district’s first.

The school board vote followed a protest in which dozens of teachers, employees and parents lined up along the sidewalk of Montebello Boulevard. Protesters held signs that read “Stop Charter Schools” and “Our students are not for sale” as they chanted, “Not for sale.”

“What’s really wonderful is, we’re united,” Patzkowski said. “The administration, (the teachers and classified unions) are all united together with parents, and we’re opposed to this.”

During the board meeting, eight residents spoke against the charter school. Two people, including the charter school company’s board secretary, Jose Salas, spoke in favor of it.

Those who spoke against the charter school bemoaned a lack of accountability.

“Charter schools can promise the world on a piece of paper, but in reality, they don’t have to deliver anything to our students,” said Elizabeth Kocharian, a teacher at Bell Gardens High School.

Others said this specific company had already shown bad faith in their dealings with the district.

Before Thursday’s meeting, school board members asked for more time to consider the proposal because they knew little about it. But the company proposing the school, Legacy Charter Public Schools, denied their request.

Miki Moreno, a retired teacher and school board candidate, said that decision alone proved the company shouldn’t be trusted.

“If a group isn’t going to cooperate with the board on this very first thing, how cooperative are they going to be down the line?” Moreno asked. “Once they’re entrenched, we can expect less cooperation from them.”

Scott Warner, a business manager for Temecula-based Charter School Management Corp., was one of the two people to speak in favor of the charter school. His organization served as a consultant to the petitioner. He said that while some charter schools get a bad rap, he’s witnessed them help communities, too.

“I see the good that charter schools do,” Warner said. “Just as there are many school districts that are embroiled, there are also charter schools that are embroiled. … But (charter schools) allow the parents of the district to have a good choice and good options.”

District staff put together a fact-finding document about the proposal. Bibi Alvarado, the district’s elementary education director, presented the document, which found the 196-page charter school petition to be “insufficient.”

Alvarado’s presentation included a litany of deficiencies in the proposal, including a lack of parent signatures indicating interest in the charter school, no location identified to house the school and only $20,000 budgeted for special education consultants.

Before the vote, board members spoke about their reasons for denying the petition.

“One of the reasons I’m leery about charter schools is because they can accept or reject students,” board member Hector Chacon said. “In that sense, they’re an exclusionary organization, or they can be an exclusionary organization. And when you can be an exclusionary organization, that’s a form of discrimination.”

Board member Edgar Cisneros said his “biggest concern” was how the charter school would address special education students.

“Twenty thousand dollars? Is that an annual budget?” he said. “That could be one student, based on their needs.”

Board president Joanna Flores called the vote “a very clear-cut” decision.

Hayley Munguia covers City Hall in Pasadena, El Monte and Pico Rivera for the Southern California News Group. She previously worked as a data reporter for FiveThirtyEight and has written for The Week, the Jerusalem Post and the Austin American-Statesman, among other publications. She's originally from Austin, graduated from NYU and will pet a dog any chance she gets.

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